Poll: Encrypting Phone & Data

If I do so, the phone switches on but stops at the point where I have to enter the decrypting code without the alarm clock ringing…
Oh dear, does this mean, that I have to go back to default settings? I have a backup, but had I known what consequences the encryption brings, I would not have done it… For me it doesn’t make sense to keep my phone switched on forever, what do I need it for when I’m asleep?

What @kgha says:

Additionally, I wonder about people like @Stefan: Is your e-mail password not confidential? Don’t you use other services on your mobile as well which demand passwords or codes?

Fair enough, your device is encrypted when turned on. But if I lost my device, which e.g. would turn off at some point because the battery runs out, I’d feel a lot more comfortable knowing there is an additional layer of encryption.
Someone with access to my various e-mail accounts would be a major cause of sleepless nights, actually.

I do guess that really paranoid people wouldn’t use any mobile phone in the post Snowden age, and I know encryption is just another complication for the average user. But for me, the only drawback with it is that I can’t use the alarm clock.

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@carpe_diem80 Sorry, i confirm that timed power on is not working with encryption. This is certainly not Fairphones fault, its cause lies deep in the Android internals.

@anon90052001 Maybe you should update the Fairphone documentation with a warning explaining the consequences of using encryption?

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@humorkritik The worst which can happen is that someone uses my email account for spam mailing. I do not care too much for internet services (eg. My calendar can only be synced when in my home network.) I seldomly use Facebook through my Firefox browser and don’t save my password there.
Of course I don’t use online banking on my phone. So if someone steals my phone, no confidential information would get lost.
But maybe I am seeing this too naively and you can point out something I am missing.

i have just tried to crypt the phone too.
Same problem: both SIM card are simply ignored from the phone (no PIN required, SIM icon with red cross).
I did not have any external app installed on the phone before (only update to Cherry 1.6 was done).
I ran the encryption without SIM and SD card installed. And everything was working nicely before encryption for one month.

Otherwise no performance issue noticeable.
Encryption took about 30 min (or less)

The fact that the encryption password and the unlock screen password is really annoying and unsecure since you retype your password it very often.

Could explain how you did it ?
How to perform a “hard reset” on my Fairphone? ?

Regards

@fnx - that’s exactly what I did… however, I have since found that the problem reoccurs. I don’t reboot my phone often so I don’t find it too much of a problem, but to work around the SIM card issue I activate ‘airplane mode’ and then de-active it. It seems to kick the SIMs into action for me.

Try it and let me know if it works for you too

Same behaviour.
Activation and cancellation of airplane mode works to wake-up the SIMs and need to be done after each reboot.
System parameters > Wireless & Network > Plus (/More) > Airplane Mode [CheckBox]`

1 Like

@Ben: Ok, thanks anyway for finding this out!

thanks, that saved me a huge stress!

If there was a proper way of encrypting, that is, a good strong password for the encryption, and the pattern unlock available as screen lock, I would probably consider encrypting. But my fear is that in case the phone crashes during the night I might miss a call, and I use one of the sim slots for my work which is a 24 hour thing.

As a thing in the middle I use keepass2android where I store passwords, although some google account passwords are saved on the phone.

I use encryption on my Fairphone. I had my first Fairphone stolen a week after I had it, wasn’t encrypted, but luckely didn’t have too muc sensitive information on it yet. But since my phone now has an app from my bank, some Bitcoin apps and a whole lot of photos on it, not to mention WhatsApp chat logs and much more info I don’t want to risk anyone getting their hands on it. People who say they don’t have any sensitive info on their smartphone either don’t realy use it or are unaware of what they actually have on it.

Since there isn’t a way to have a different encription password and unlock password and a) a short password for encryption defeats the whole idea of encripting it and b) a long password for unlocking is completely unpractical, I installed the [Cryptfs Password app][1] that lets you choose a diferent password for encrypting and for unlock screen. I have a PIN for my lock screen and a very long pasword for my phone encription that I only need to give in after I’ve switch my phone off.

I would really urge everyone to at least consider encripting their phone.
[1]: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.nick.cryptfs.passwdmanager

5 Likes

I had to encrypt my phone as a corporate requirement for allowing access to office365. It doesn’t bother me too much as I hardly ever switch the phone off so do not need to use the encryption pin often (apart from screen lock of course). However the problem with SIM card detection has been incredibly annoying and I didn’t realise it was related until reading these posts. Wiping the phone is a bit extreme - I have discovered that switching airplane mode on and off again usually solves any problems after trying to change SIM setup!

I have now reported this to Fairphone support as a bug, so hopefully we’ll get something sorted

Hi !

Encryption worked great but it seems it is now impossible to update the Fairphone OS.

The process seems to start OK, the phone reboots, and… Almost nothing changed, the gapps disaperead, etc, but the displayed version stays the same. Like as if the update was partial.

Is anyone experienced the same behavior ?

Regards,

The update has been postponed:

Hi, if you were answering to my message, I add a precision : this behavior is the same when I try to upgrade to 1.7.

1.7 was only shipped with a small amount of phones and is also not reliable to use. The last stable and supported version is 1.6, I’m afraid. :frowning:

Ok thanks :slight_smile:

I hope the upgrade will be applicable to encrypted phone.

I’m running an encrypted phone and have run the update previously. I tried updating a couple of times (for testing purposes). On one occasion I had the same problems that you describe. It seemed to be something to do with the updater app.

Anyway, when the next version is released, if you have trouble updating through the app, you can always use the flash method to install the update and I think that will sort it :smile: